RUDAK - THE PACKET RADO EXPERMENT ON-BOARD OSCAR P3C Hanspeter Kuhlen DKlYQ AMSAT-DL Program Manager AMSAT-RUDAK Project Finkenstrasse 11 D-801 1 Aschheim nr. Munich West- Germany Tel.: 49 89-90 33 90 5 (home) 49 89-6000 - 3542 (qrl) Objectives of the RUDAK experiment Abstract Nearly two years ago, AMSAT-DL initially published the outcome of its first RUDAK system design meeting at the 4th ARRL Conference in San Francisco [ 11. At this time we wish to present the current status of the flight ready hardware and the completed and tested ground station equipment. This paper will briefly present the objectives of the RUDAK experiment and the performance achieved by the RUDAK transponder on-board OSCAR Phase 3 C. t will also include a description of a recommended user terminal which can be utilized for all satellite operating modes via OSCAR Phase 3 C, FUJ OSCAR 12, as well as for terrestrial packet radio. ntroduction Early in 1985 when the packet radio revolution began spreading around the world, following acceptance of the AX.25 as an international amateur radio protocol for link control, the first system design meetings took place, where the payload capabilities of the new AMSAT OSCAR satellite were discussed. The experiment was named RUDAK which is the accronym for Regenerativer Umsetzer fur Digitale Amateurfunk Kommunikation which is translated into English Regenerating Transponder for Digital Amateur Communications. These are: * Real-time digital communications facility with ALOHA (i.e. uncoordinated) type of time division multiple access and continuous time division multiplex (i.e. permanent) on the downlink. Due to the long visibility of the spacecraft because of its elliptical orbit, a mailbox or any other store-and-forward facility was not considered necessary. * Operational use of binary shift keying (BPSK) with differential coding for the purpose of individual communication, education and experimentation. * General information broadcast in AX.25 (U-frames) or AMSAT format. Computer controlled mode switching (autonomous operation) *Provide in-orbit facility using a fully programmable computer with intelligent hardware interfaces in order to provide a testbed for communications experiments such as testing alternative access procedures, different bitrates and so forth. * Keep size and complexity of ground user equipment as low as possible to motivate home-brewing of st:ation equipment. * nformation system through a ROBOT mode to RUDAK processor. n this mode, connects from individual stations to RUDAK will be responded with a particular message e.g. Keplerians and then disconnected. So at least a positive confirmation of a contact will be provided. 100
The RUDAK space segment The RUDAK mode will be in operation on mode L only. Due to the fact that the RUDAK transponder is basicly independent from the normal passband it will be operative even when the mode L passband is switched off. The uplink frequency will be 1269.725 MHz and the downlink 435.725 MHz, however the exact frequency plan will be published after final calibration of all transponders. A block diagram of the digital RUDAK transponder is given in figure 1. The transmissions from the ground stations will be short packets or bursts to allow time sharing of the frequency among several users simultaneously. A specially developed burst demodulator on-board the satellite scans around the center frequency to cope with uncertainties of the uplink signals in terms of frequency accuracy, doppler shifts and so on. A range of +- 7SkHz is scanned at 120msec/scan. The measured performance of the flight unit is about 100 msec for the acquisition i.e. the time span from detection of an input signal to its demodulation. The demodulated signal then is the recovered data and clock for further processing in the RUDAK computer. This unavoidable overhead time of 1OOmsec has to be considered in setting the appropriate TNC parameter. For instance the AXDELAY in TNC s so, that a sufficient number of flags (#7E) are being transmitted prior to each packet thus allowing the demodulator to lock on the signal. The optimum values will be communicated in the broadcast beacons, however according to our present experience they will probably be almost the same as used for the standard FM MODEMS in the TNCs. Due to the inherent collision problem for the uplink packets, the maximum theoretically achievable throughput is limited to 18%. n other words, even under optimum channel conditions, only 18% of the packets offered to the channel will survive. This effect is also to be observed when a mountain top packet radio digipeater is within reach of many local stations, where on the other side the local stations cannot hear each other. n this case the carrier sensing mechanism (CSMA), which normally avoids collisions by inhibiting transmissions on an engaged frequency, is useless. Therefore 2400bps has been selected for the uplink bitrate resulting in 40Obps for the downlink. As an option there is a 1200bps mode, where NRZ coding is used so as to be fully compatible with the FUJ OSCAR 12 downlink. Mode L has been designated to be the dominating mode throughout the entire mission of Phase 3C. For the digital experiment, the RF modules will be independent of the normal passband of mode L. RUDAK User Terminals For the user, probably the most interesting part of the experiment is the design and installation of his/her own satellite user terminal. As defined in the objectives, one of the main goals of the experiment is to enable reasonably skilled individual operators to test the modem modes of digital communications. This has been considered not only in the selection of moderate bitrates, but also in the design and development of an extremely versatile easily built user terminal. During the last couple of months, all necessary modules (PCBs) for the RF and digital unit have been designed and tested. Wherever possible, we took off-the-shelf designs in order to avoid re-inventing the wheel. The PCBs are now available and have been beta-tested by several amateurs. Now its time to blring it all together in such a way as to be easily and reliably reproduced. The design of the terminal consists of two separate cabinets, called RF-Unit and Digital Unit. The features can be summarized as follows: * Operates in ALL satellite modes: CW, SSB, PSK through passband and of course RUDAK modes. * The RF-unit can also be used as general purpose power amplifier for terrestrial 23cm use, etc. * The power amplifier provides 20W CW output power on 24cm with hybrid PA module. * Converts 2m into 24cm; built-in attenuator to accept 1 W of driving power. * Modulator for 2400bps * BPSK demodula.tors for 400bps and 1200bps with Bi-phase and NRZl coding respectively. 101
Buffer. Clock :. j&c& L. : EB L Decoder Data Transponder. RF $&g&v t B0 / / Switch A A Encoder A =[ ~ &bps Bi-Ph NRZl/Bi0 1 1 1 24 khz YPSK Sub-carrier 1200&s NRZ 1., 1 1 scan & search c 65SC22 VA 3.2768 MHz 819.2 khz u osz. 4 + ii-2 -L r \ +14v SO Clock RPC RUDAK Power Conditioner Reset -+o +5v M+lOV 65SCO2 CPU 7* D4464 CMOS RAM 56k*8 HM 6616 CMOS FL PRdM Figure 1
BPSK - MODULATOR 2400 bps t RUDAK POWER SUPPLY ( RF + DG UNT) USER TERMNAL - RF UNT LNA.. 0 DEMODULATOR terrestrial PACKET RADO 2m / 7Ocm etc. RUDAK USER TERMNAL - DGTAL UNT Figure 2 RWDAK USER TERMlNAt
* Compatibility with FUJ OSCAR 12 formats. * Built-in Terminal Node Controller (TNC) * nternal switching for space- or terrestrial packet radio operations. * AMSAT interface to general purpose computer (ATAR SOOXL) for satellite tracking with automated antenna azimuth and elevation control, satellite telemetry decoding with display of measured parameters in engineering units, visibility prediction, data communications in AMSAT block format similar to telemetry blocks of OSCARlO, etc. To the best of our knowledge, the ATAR 800XL is available in almost any country in the world. This computer has been selected for OSCAR 10 satellite control purposes because of its extremely low price and even more importantly (sometimes) because of its very effective RF-shielding. As soon as another computer is operated close to the sensitive satellite RX, this shielding is appreciated even more. * Common power supply in the RF-unit. For the digital unit, we selected a so-called modular design, so that commencing from a common baseline version, the station can be expanded on a step-by-step basis with additional functions, if desired ( matched to the achievable PFD - pecuniary flux density.hi!) The whole set-up is shown in figure 2. This block diagram shows the required equipments in addition to the user terminal. Before getting nervous on the very complex configuration shown in that diagram it must be emphasized that it shows the ultimate super dupe version of an amateur satellite home terminal. The minimum required hardware beside the receiver and an RS232 monitor are the 400bps demodulator, the code converter interface and the TNC. This will allow monitoring of RUDAK activities as a looker-on. Doing so and reading hopefully a lot of exotic call signs passing by will definitely motivate to do one more step and participate with active transmissions. RUDAK Field Test nstallation Since the RUDAK experiment utilizes several newly developed items, in both the hardware and software areas, a comprehensive field test for all components was therefore determined to be mandatory. The equipment has been installed on top of a 45m high water tower in the city of smaning near Munich providing RUDAK experimentation and testing to several amateurs in the Munich region. The block diagram of the installations is given in figure 3. From here RUDAK is operated exactly the same way as hopefully soon from OSCAR XX in-orbit. This includes also the testing of the HU interfaces and the internal communications among the two computers on-board.the equipment configuration of the field test is kept exactly the same as the equipment on-board the satellite so that the achieved performance improvements and hardware changes can also be introduced into the flight hardware. The RUDAK Software System The basic operational software (S/W) is available and has been tested. However, it is the software which will hopefully provide a caleidoscope of new features during the in-orbit life time of the experiment. For the sake of communications among the members of the RUDAK group, the AMSAT control stations and, last but not least, interested experimenters, we defined the S/W in modular way: The entire S/W system is composed of the subsystems Flight S/W, Ground Support S/W and Test & Simulation. S/W. The subsyst.em Flight S/W breaks down into so-called tasks such as: The Task 1.0: ROM operating system (ROS), Task 1.l: the PS kernel, Task 1.2 : the AX.25server, Task 1.3 : the beacon service, Task 1.4 : the traffic control and Task 1.5 : Utilities The subsystem Ground Support S/W breaks down into: Task 2.1 : RUDAK+HU Command S/W, Task 2.2 : ntegrated S/W package (public domain S/W for ATAR 8OOXL), Task 2.3 : TNC S/W (i.e. modifications and changes for RUDAK operation of various TNC- S/Ws) The subsystem Test & Simulation breaks down into: 104
Space Segment t HU 24.0 khz S/C - CMD - RX k - l 1269.675 435.614 MHz i-7.5khz MHz HU Status nform. Word NB NE S/W RUDAK PROCESSOR 24kHz Rx 4 Sweep 1 TX tomputei) YmputeJ Control nterface HU CMD 400 bps BiO AMSAT Strobe m lntertace 2400 bps 400 bps t TX+ DEM. PSK Rx TX RS 232 - TNC 4 435.614 MHz 400 bps Bi0-AMSAT or 400 bps Bi0-AX.25 or 1200 bps NRZ AMSAT CMD STE RUDAK CMD Figure 3 0 AMSAT-DL RUDAK-Group V 1.2
Task 3.1 Field Test S/W, Task 3.2 n-orbit Test S/W (Engineering mode) The RUDAK User Manual Great care and attention has been devoted to the objective of keeping the user station reasonably easy to built. Therefore the design of the proposed user terminal is such that no special tools or machinery will be necessary to built it. Several components, in particular those of the RF unit have been built and evaluated in many different design approaches testing their suitability for amateur construction. The results of these investigations have been compiled in the RUDAK User Manual. This manual provides all necessary back ground information on all aspects of the experiment as well as a detailed description of how to built your own terminal. At the time of writing this article we are in the final compilation and editing phase of the manual. The official release for the complete handbook is presently scheduled for the end of this year, right in time to get prepared for the launch of OSCAR P3C. References [l] Dr.K.Meinzer DJ4ZC, H.Kuhlen DKl YQ Formal definition meeting of the AMSAT RUDAK experiment Proceedings of the 4th ARRL Computer & Networking Conference, San Francisco, USA 1985 [2] K.Brenndijrfer DF8CA, G.E. Tucker,WASNV RUDAK: A status report AMSAT QEX 59, Jan. 1987 [3] H.Kuhlen DKlYQ, D.Moe KEGMN/DJOHC The RUDAK Experiment 73 Magazin, August 1986 Acknowledgements Many thanks to Dr.Karl Meinzer DJ4ZC and Werner Haas DJ5KQ for their generous support and the phantastic people in the RUDAK team for their excellent and invaluable contributions to this project: Peter Gulzow DB20S, Stefan Eckardt DL2MDL, Gerhard Metz DG2CV, Knut Brenndorfer DF8CA, Herrmann Hagn DK8C1, Heinz Molleken DL3AH, Don Moe KE6MN/DJOHC (AMSAT-NA) and Robin Gape G8DQX (AMSAT-UK). 106